Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
OK, so you're thinking about building a website for your business. Here's the thing that's going to hurt a bit: the "easiest" way is probably the worst way for your business.
I've been building websites for 7 years as a freelancer, and I've watched countless business owners fall into the same trap. They want something that looks amazing, converts visitors, and gets found on Google - but they approach it completely backwards.
You know what I used to build? Beautiful digital ghost towns. Gorgeous websites that nobody ever visited. I was essentially training world-class sales reps to do door-to-door sales in empty neighborhoods. The websites looked incredible, the user journey was seamless, but there were zero visitors to experience any of it.
Here's what you'll learn from my 7-year journey and why I completely changed my approach:
Why the "design-first" approach kills most business websites before they start
The fundamental difference between a marketing asset and a digital brochure
My specific framework for building websites that actually drive business results
Real examples of how this shift transformed my client projects
The testing infrastructure that turns your website into a growth engine
This isn't about choosing between beautiful design and SEO performance. It's about understanding that your website is a marketing laboratory, not a static showcase.
Industry Wisdom
What every business owner thinks they need
Walk into any web design meeting and you'll hear the same conversation. "We need a website that looks professional, converts visitors, and ranks on Google." Sounds reasonable, right?
Here's the standard approach that 90% of businesses follow:
Start with the homepage - Design the perfect first impression
Map user journeys - Figure out where visitors go from the front door
Add SEO later - Optimize the beautiful site for search engines
Launch and promote - Drive traffic to the finished product
Iterate based on performance - Make small tweaks to improve results
This conventional wisdom exists because it feels logical. Design agencies promote it because it's how they're structured to work. Business owners like it because they can visualize the end result. Even developers prefer it because it's a linear process.
The problem? This approach treats your website like a physical store with one front door. In reality, every page of your website is a potential entry point. Every piece of content is a chance for someone to discover your business.
But here's where it gets really broken: most businesses spend 90% of their time building the product and 10% figuring out how people will find it. That's backwards for digital businesses where distribution matters more than perfection.
The "design-first" approach creates what I call beautiful ghost towns - stunning websites that nobody visits because discovery was an afterthought.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
For the first few years of my freelance career, I was the architect of digital ghost towns. I'd spend weeks crafting pixel-perfect websites for SaaS startups and ecommerce stores. Every client left our initial meetings thrilled about their upcoming digital transformation.
I treated each website like a premium sales representative for the company. The messaging was sharp, the user journey was seamless, the design made competitors look outdated. I was proud of every launch.
But here's what I discovered after tracking results across dozens of projects: I was essentially training world-class sales reps to do door-to-door sales in empty neighborhoods.
The pattern was brutal and consistent:
Beautiful websites that converted at 3-5% when people actually visited
Professional brand presence that impressed the few people who found them
Perfect user experiences for the 50 monthly visitors they were getting
These websites had become expensive digital brochures. Impressive when someone stumbled upon them, but nobody was stumbling upon them. The harsh reality hit me during a client review meeting: without traffic, even the world's best-converting website converts zero.
The breaking point came with a B2B SaaS client who'd invested $15K in a stunning website rebuild. Six months later, they were getting 400 monthly organic visitors. Meanwhile, their competitor with an ugly WordPress site was getting 15K monthly visitors because they'd focused on SEO from day one.
That's when I realized I needed to completely flip my approach. The fundamental question changed from "How do we make this beautiful?" to "How do we make this discoverable?"
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After that painful realization, I completely restructured how I approach website projects. Instead of starting with design, I now start with distribution. Here's the framework I developed:
Phase 1: Discovery Before Design
Before touching any design tools, I map out the entire content ecosystem. This means:
Keyword research to understand what your customers actually search for
Competitor content analysis to find gaps and opportunities
Content architecture that treats every page as a potential entry point
Phase 2: Content-First Structure
Instead of thinking about the homepage as the main entry point, I build around search intent. Each page serves a specific search query and guides users toward the next logical step.
For a recent SaaS client, instead of a traditional "About → Features → Pricing" structure, we built:
50+ use-case pages targeting "how to [solve specific problem]"
Integration pages for every major tool their customers use
Template pages showcasing actual implementations
Phase 3: Programmatic Scaling
Once the framework proves successful, we scale using systems and automation. For one ecommerce client with 1000+ products, we:
Built AI workflows to generate unique product descriptions
Created collection pages optimized for buying intent keywords
Implemented automated internal linking based on product relationships
Phase 4: Design for Discovery
Only after the content strategy is locked do we focus on visual design. But now the design serves the content strategy, not the other way around. Every design decision is made with SEO and user intent in mind.
The result? Websites that look great AND get found. More importantly, they're built to scale content production rather than requiring a developer for every new page.
Keyword Research
Start with what people actually search for, not what you want to say about your business
Content Architecture
Build around search intent - every page should target specific queries your customers use
Testing Infrastructure
Create systems that let marketing teams experiment without developer bottlenecks
Design Integration
Make visual decisions that support discoverability, not just aesthetics
The transformation in results was dramatic across every client project that adopted this approach:
Ecommerce Success Story:
One Shopify client went from <500 monthly visitors to over 5,000 in three months using AI-powered SEO content. We generated optimized descriptions for their 3,000+ products across 8 languages, creating a scalable content machine instead of a static catalog.
SaaS Growth Example:
A B2B startup shifted from featuring generic product benefits to creating specific use-case pages. Instead of "Our platform helps with project management," we built pages like "How marketing agencies use [Product] for client reporting." Each page included embedded templates users could try immediately.
The Discovery Shift:
Clients stopped getting most traffic through their homepage. Instead, 70-80% of visitors entered through specific solution pages, already pre-qualified and ready for deeper engagement. This higher-intent traffic converted at 2-3x better rates than homepage visitors.
Most importantly, these websites became self-sustaining growth engines rather than expensive digital brochures that required constant promotion to generate any results.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons I learned from completely changing my approach to website development:
Distribution beats perfection every time - A great website that nobody finds is worthless. Focus on discoverability first.
Every page is a potential front door - Stop designing for homepage visitors. Most people will enter through specific content pages.
Marketing autonomy is crucial - If marketers need developers for every content change, your website will become a bottleneck instead of a growth engine.
Content strategy drives design decisions - Visual choices should support discoverability and user intent, not just brand aesthetics.
Test infrastructure matters more than launch perfection - Build systems that enable rapid experimentation rather than trying to get everything perfect upfront.
SEO-first doesn't mean ugly - You can have both great design and great discoverability. You just need to prioritize discovery in your process.
Scale through systems, not just content - The best websites include workflows for generating new content, not just beautiful templates for existing content.
The biggest mistake I see businesses make is treating their website like a finished product instead of a marketing laboratory that needs constant experimentation and iteration.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups implementing this approach:
Start with use-case pages before building product feature pages
Create integration documentation for every tool your customers use
Build template libraries that prospects can try immediately
Focus on solution-specific landing pages over generic product descriptions
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores applying this strategy:
Optimize collection pages for buying intent keywords
Create style guides and sizing content that answers pre-purchase questions
Build comparison pages for products customers evaluate together
Implement automated product description generation for scale